A radio frequency identification (RFID) tag is a device that stores product information on a microscopic chip equipped with an antenna and transmits data wirelessly. The RFID tag is a small-sized item such as an adhesive label that can be attached to or integrated to entities or products. The RFID tag includes an electronic chip and an antenna. The electronic chip allows the antenna to receive wireless requests sent from a transceiver called “reader” and to respond to the requests. By way of example, wireless tags are used to identify people when they are attached to passports, tickets or payment cards, or used, like barcodes, to identify products when they are attached to the products. Such application of the RFID cards to the products eases inventory control and enables inventory tracking through a distribution system for the products.
RFID systems are used in a wide variety of fields such as pharmaceutical industry, distribution industry, fashion, book sales, and so forth, for the purposes of tracking products. The RFID technology is getting more increasingly used to automatize manual processes, identify and protect cargos, and provide real-time visibility upon inventory.
By applying the RFID technology to individual processing steps of systems for distributing products for the purposes of accurately tracking the products provided with the wireless tags, investigating authenticity and finding out the sources of the products, counterfeiting can be effectively prevented.
In this regard, Korean Patent Laid-open Publication No. 10-2013-0026423 (entitled “Method for identifying and authenticating RFID tag by reader”) describes an authentication method for preventing counterfeiting of an RFID tag.
Since, however, a method capable of identifying RFID tag IDs effectively is yet to be known, an RFID tag authentication server cannot but use a very inefficient method of calculating an unidirectional hash function approximately twice as many times as the number of RFID tags registered on the RFID tag authentication server in order to hide an ID of the RFID tag and protect the privacy thereof.